Equipment incorporating electronics components, such as magnifying optics, telecommunications/navigation equipment, night vision, range finders, laser designators, and other similar devices, have become indispensible to the soldier particularly on the battlefield. New electronic devices are constantly being developed and deployed as well.
This technology increases the efficiency and safety of the soldiers. In addition, the soldiers' missions are rendered more survivable by enabling rapid identification, situational awareness, and target engagement. While these technological advances provide the armed forces with an important advantage in battle, they also present inherent logistics problems.
More specifically, the batteries that support the electronic devices have a finite life. Even rechargeable battery technology is of limited use to a fielded and fighting soldier. It is common practice to replace batteries going into combat at least daily. Shortage of fresh batteries and the possibility of depletion while in combat pose a serious threat to the modern soldier trying to exploit the enhanced fighting capabilities technology.
It would therefore be desirable to offer self-powering capability for these electronic devices, or a means of battery recharging, while operating away from a power grid. In this way, both the gross mass of batteries needed to operate in the field, and the likelihood of electronics power failure during hot combat would be reduced.
However, there are numerous challenges associated with practically capturing electrical energy from the rounds that are shot from a weapon, because significant energy is wasted in mechanical motion and heat. Modern automatic weapons such as an M16 assault rifle, M4 carbine, M249 squad automatic weapon, and a whole plethora of commercial and military small arms, operate by imparting a portion of a fired round's expanding gas force to cycle the gun's mechanism.
The weapon is generally designed to extract and eject a spent round from the gun barrel, load a subsequent round, and trigger some firing device, all within a fraction of a second. The moving parts therefore must translate in a back and forth manner at high velocities, where speeds exceeding 20 feet per second are not uncommon, at certain times during the recoil and counter-recoil (return) portions of the M249's operation cycle.
What is therefore needed is an advanced system and associated method that uses this high cyclic rate and high speed linear action for capturing electrical energy. Prior to the advent of the present invention, the need for such an optimization framework has heretofore remained unsatisfied.